


Of Planetary Bans and Religious Sacrifices

by Chordae



Series: The Mandalorian and His Child Entourage [4]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: ManDadlorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22201942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chordae/pseuds/Chordae
Summary: Din never thought there would be a day where he would be a father, but look where that’s gotten him.(He’s also never stopped to consider if he’ll ever be banned from an entireplanet, but look where that’s gotten him.)
Series: The Mandalorian and His Child Entourage [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592737
Comments: 5
Kudos: 177





	Of Planetary Bans and Religious Sacrifices

**Author's Note:**

> a prequel (of sorts) to ‘Three Minds Are Better Than One’  
> (Can be read as a stand-alone if you haven’t read it, though!)

After somehow acquiring a few unclaimed art pieces (a handful of pottery and a few paintings) from a thieving bounty, Din decides to stop at the nearest planet to sell them off for a few credits.

The Razor Crest lands on the topsoil of the jungle-like planet, rickety engines sputtering and coughing in the tell-tale sign of necessary maintenance.

Din disembarks, tugging his kid along and lugging the sack of art behind him none too gently. His gaze trails over the blaster-holes, ragged wires, the smallest bit of sparks flying about, and the still-sputtering engines.

(He decides that perhaps a maintenance check is for the best.)

The grassy terrain of the planet is adorned with enormous trees tall enough that the atmosphere obscures their highest leaves, and there’s a smattering of plants on the jungle floor that dance in the small breeze.

Some of the plants’ stems dance and roil in the wind, moving with the elegance of a dancer as their leaves move and take hold of the trunks of trees.

(Din is only 50% sure that the plants aren't sentient.)

His kid hurries out, tugging out of Din’s hand, robes trailing behind him as he inspects the environment. His wide eyes take in the enormous flora, and he strolls along, kicking at loose dirt and clumps of grass as he waddles along. Din bemusedly watches him inhale an insect when he fails to stop him in time.

“Ad’ika,” Din calls out, the kid perking up. “Stay close.” He weakly reprimands.

Lugging the artwork along, Din follows a beaten trail to a nearby town. If his memory serves him correctly, the natives are long-limbed, spindly, spidery-looking aliens and are the only humanoid creatures that inhabit this planet.

(They’re not terrifying. Not at all.)

Din also knows that they tend to have a penchant for art and shiny things, hence his and the kid’s deliberate pit-stop.

As they pass by hundreds and thousands of trees, a pinprick on the horizon makes itself visible, the steady stream of smoke rising from far-off chimneys and giving sign of a nearing village.

The father-son duo keeps a reasonable pace, dragging their feet along the beaten path for a matter of hours until it eventually gives way to a cobbled walkway.

Bustling himself and his son into town with the art in tow, Din quickly finds an appraiser with ease.

He walks into the humble shop, the door swinging shut behind him and his kid.

They walk to the counter (or, in Din’s kid’s case, stumbles straight into the wide of the counter), and Din juts his chin towards the artwork he carries around.

After a low conversation, the chittering shopkeeper directs Din to sit the pottery and paintings atop the counter so she can properly get to to appraising.

He does as asked, carefully putting everything atop the counter, then hoists his kid to his waist.

A few sullen minutes pass, the appraiser offering more credits than Din had initially thought for the first few works of pottery.

The kid wiggles in his arms, warbling and petting the side of Din’s helmet. He turns to chatter his baby-talk to the shopkeeper, receiving kind smiles and a few words in exchange.

After a few minutes, another person, a local, enters the store, swinging the door shut behind him with a bit too much force.

The pottery atop of the counter shakes, as does most of the small shop. Cupboards rattle and paintings lining the walls shake in their rickety frames. A pot precariously bounces for a few short seconds, then topples over the edge, a blur of bright, stained ceramic as it nears the floor.

Din reacts a second too late, unable to grab it in time. His kid, however, does his weird magic-hands thing, keeping the jug levitating a short distance above the ground.

A brief moment of awe passes, a lapse of silence passing between everyone present.

Din hurries to grab the pot out of thin air, then sits it back atop the counter.

The shopkeeper gapes at his kid, all four of her black eyes staring at him in bewilderment.

“Jidai!” She chitters, and the local that had entered earlier scrambles over, nearly falling over his multitude of limbs.

The clumsy alien turns to stare at Din’s kid, then bonelessly collapses onto the floor, all four hands clasped above his head as if praying.

“Jidai!” He chitters back in a burbling baritone.

The shopkeeper hurries out from behind her counter, stopping a short distance away from Din and his kid. She also collapses to her knees, her own hands clasped above her head. They both bow their heads multiple times, then rest their foreheads on the ground, groveling and clicking out syllables Din doesn’t understand.

Din’s kid, a bit weary looking, turns in Din’s arms to give his father an incredibly confused look.

(Din can’t blame him. He’s also drawing up blanks as the locals continue their nonsensical chanting.)

After a few minutes too long, the shopkeeper rises and presses a few credits too many into Din’s gloved hands, moving the artwork to the back room of the store.

The other local rises as well, gently taking one of Din’s hands and one of his kid’s hand. He stands there, speaking and stumbling over his words in his fervor, two arms forward and clasping their own, another two arms crossed behind his back. Talking so fast that Din’s head spins, not even heeding Din’s motions or useless begging for him to slow down, the local eventually stops talking.

He nudges them out of the store and down the street to an unnecessarily large building, then hurries them inside.

“Hey, let go-“ Din helplessly protests, but the alien’s enormous with too many limbs and Din assumes he isn’t really posing a threat to him or his kid. Din simply sighs and accepts his fate as he and his kid are led to a well-dressed alien, perhaps a ruler of some sorts, perched upon a throne and garbed in bright, clashing colors.

The local that had led them here and the presumed ruler chatter with one another, Din only catching on to two words- the familiar ‘Jidai’ and a discernible ‘Oviri’, spoken with reverence and dripping with fear.

After a few more too-long minutes of conversation, the ruler descends from her throne, robes flowing behind her as she comes to a stop before Din, staring down upon him.

“Come with me.” She says. “The Jidai shall meet Oviri.”

It wasn’t so much as a ‘come with me’ as it was ‘I’ll force you to follow me’, the tight grip of her taloned hands rubbing red marks around Din’s wrist. He reaches for his blaster, then forces himself to follow along obediently. He considers exactly what would happen to him (more importantly, his kid) if he shot the chieftain of a village to death in the middle of said village.

They walk through the town, following a cobbled trail that turns into a beaten dirt path. Overgrown weeds and plants tug at the hem of Din’s cloak and at his ankles.

Night falls as they near a cave, the ruler insisting Din put the child down. Din, not trusting a second of whatever’s going on, does not put his kid down.

(Much to the chagrin of the chieftain.)

The chieftain lets go of Din, motioning him into the cave. One hand wrapped around his kid and the other resting on his blaster, Din warily enters.

They’re shoved into the cave, stalagmites and stalactites lining the floor and ceiling. All is silent save for the subtle drip of water skewing Din’s usually sharp senses.

After finding themselves quite a ways along in the cave, Din turns to ask their unwilling alien guide exactly where they are, only to catch sight of her slowly edging backwards.

Silence washes over them, the steady drip of water gone, plunging them in deafening silence and an all-encompassing darkness.

With a deep roar from within the cave, the ruler scurries off in a terrified haste, and Din turns to face an enormous feline, features barely visible through the hastily turned-on light on Din’s helmet.

An enormous, old, fat feline, matted fur and blood-covered maws, too many teeth lining its mouth and rolling muscles trapped beneath its hide.

A growl builds within its throat, shaking the walls and sending stalactites tumbling down, shattering against the ground. Din feels the growl deep within his chest and at the pads of his feet, the vibrations aching in his kneecaps and nearly sending him toppling forward.

Tightening his grip on his kid, careful to not crush his slight form, Din draws his blaster.

With a quick blaster-shot to the cranium the feline easily dies, collapsing to the ground in an incredibly anticlimactic way.

The kid cries in his arms, nearing inconsolable. Din gently speaks to him, the Mando’a rolling of his tongue in a soothing croon.

His kid calms after a few minutes, his cries turned to muffled sniffled, and tiredly collapses against Don’s chest.

Din, enraged beyond a point of being talked down, stomps out of the cave.

(It’s not much of a ‘stomp’–he’s careful to not jostle or have footfalls loud enough to awaken his kid. He’s an intimidating sight, nonetheless.)

Stumbling out of the cave, he wields his blaster, waving it around at the trembling chieftain’s face.

Din, shouting expletives and demanding why she’d put them in danger (his kid in danger), receives no answer. Logic thrown out the window, he lines up his shot.

With a blaster-shot mere centimeters from taking off the chieftain's head, she begins to babble incessantly.

“Jidai is sacrifice to Oviri.” She rambles. “Their life force feeds our village for many years.” She cries out as Din glares at her. “Oviri is our graceless god.”

Shit. Din thinks, because what else can he do when he just killed an apparent ‘god’?

“How did you escape Oviri?” She questions, her brows furrowed in thought. Din can tell the moment the thought occurs to her, her head whipping up in such a dramatic manner that he was surprised she hadn’t gotten whiplash.

“You-“ She splutters, eyes wide as she stares at Din and her tone incredulous. She turns to Din’s kid, and directs whatever she says next at him. “You killed Oviri, Jidai?”

His kid just snores on, his ear flicking at a fly that decides to land there.

Apparently, it was the wrong thing for him to do, for soon her disbelief gives way to rage then terror, her frightened eyes brimming with tears as she clasps Din by the wrist once more and forces him through the jungle, through her village, and out of it.

She snarls and snaps the whole way there, her clicking sharp and short in her aggravation and underlying fear.

“Leave!” She screams herself raw, making a racket and drawing a crowd. She turns to her fellow people, clicking out what Din believes to be a synopsis of the past few hours.

The rest of the village turns to face Din and his kid (more specifically his kid), their own fear and shock apparent in their expressions.

After a bit of roughhousing and death threats (which Din gladly participates in, his blaster still whirring as he leaves), they’re forced from the village (and the planet as a whole) and told to never return, for if they do it will ‘be the end of them’.

(Afterwards, with Din and his kid aboard the ship, the kid wakes from his nap to blearily blink at Din’s appearance- Beskar armor caked in dried mud and a still-wet sludge that vaguely resembles bug blood, grumbling to himself as he wipes down his blaster and kicks off his boots. With a tired sigh and a happy trill, the kid nods back off, happy with how the day had gone.)

(Din spends the next few days brooding and scowling beneath his helmet.)

**Author's Note:**

> hell yeah I wrote this on the bus ride home  
> sorry that it’s really brief. I got more of the idea of it written down than description.  
> anyways yeehaw have a good weekend


End file.
